MERGERS AND ACQUISITIONS

A former weddings announcement writer for the paper of record tells all.

Former New York Times reporter and editor Doty, who now teaches journalism at the University of North Carolina, knows that readers are interested in one topic in particular, “the question that I know you bought this book to answer: how does someone get their announcement in” the Times? She addresses that question with entertaining, lightly snarky anecdotes showing how various people made the cut: Their monikers include "The Pretty Well-Known Asshole," "The Woman Who Wanted To Save the World," "The Junior Heiress,” and “The Feminist and the Professor.” Doty also chronicles her family's history, her lifelong fascination with weddings, and her own love affairs and path to the altar. She examines the history of wedding culture and coverage and duly addresses the necessary points about the operation of racism and classism. While her discussion of wedding movies includes a rousing tribute to Four Weddings and a Funeral and a connoisseur's guide to Hugh Grant, other digressions are less charming. A detailed report of the author's brief assignment in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina adds little to the primary narrative; ditto a long paragraph transcribing the names and details of couples married at the same church as her grandmother in the 1940s. The blow-by-blow account of a taxi ride from the airport to Doty’s boyfriend's house includes a flashback to an earlier visit to a cemetery they happen to pass along the way. "I was fascinated how cemeteries seemed to thrive in a city that probably had to dispose of dozens of bodies a day, but where we were all crammed in, each longing for our own bit of green and sky. Why were New Yorkers just not all cremated?" The answer is unclear, but for a newspaper reporter, the author does like to wax on.

Amusing and well-written, but half as long would have been twice as effective.